Oakland-born Dave Stewart was A's No. 1 starter during three-year run of World Series appearances

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OAKLAND, CA – AUGUST 25: Ricky Henderson, left, and Dave Stewart, right, of the Oakland Athletics 1989 World Series team take part in a ceremony before the A’s game against the San Francisco Giants on Sunday, Aug. 25, 2019, in Oakland, Calif (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)

OAKLAND — The A’s put an exclamation mark on a ceremony honoring the 30th anniversary of the 1989 World Series championship team by announcing that Dave Stewart, the Oakland-born pitching ace of that team, will have his uniform No. 34 retired.

Stewart is the sixth Oakland A’s player to have his number retired, and the only one who isn’t in the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. The others are Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, Rickey Henderson and Dennis Eckersley. Fingers also wore No. 34.

“Until today, the names and the numbers that have been retired are Hall of Famers, and deservedly so. They’re Hall of Famers. And for the organization to step outside of that and honor me in that way, there just are no words to express how I feel. I think it would be unfair to say it’s great – that’s not enough. It’s truly a tremendous honor,” he said.

Stewart joined 10 other players from the ’89 team, including Eckersely and Henderson, for the reunion Sunday before the A’s game against the Giants. Also on hand were Carney Lansford, Tony La Russa, Sandy Alderson and Walter J. Haas, the son of Walter A. Haas, who owned the team from 1980 until his death in 1995.

They enjoyed recalling a team that overcame the 6.9-magnitude earthquake before Game 3 at Candlestick Park and ranks among the greatest in baseball history, according to current A’s manager Bob Melvin.

“It’s hard to imagine one (better). You look at the stars on that team … you still remember those guys vividly,” said Melvin, alluding to the likes of Eckersley, Rickey Henderson, Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco. “This team’s right up there with any team.”

“We just didn’t have any weaknesses,” said Lansford, the A’s third baseman and team captain. “Nobody was going to beat us, especially after we lost to the Dodgers the year before.”

“I don’t think there’s another team that has had the players and the togetherness that we had,” added Henderson, the home-grown Hall of Famer who won American League MVP honors a year later in 1990.

The earthquake — which struck at 5:04 p.m. on Oct. 17 — became the national story and postponed Game 3 for 10 days. After the loss of more than 60 lives and $5 billion in property damage, there was no parade Oakland to celebrate the World Series victory.

Henderson still believes that was the correct response.

“I don’t think we should have had the parade because there was so much tragedy that happened in the Bay Area,” he said. “We were feeling down for them and we respected that. We just wanted to share our heart that we was behind the city.”

“I think is the fact that we were favored in three straight World Series and only won one probably has more to do with the lack of recognition for that team than anything else,” he said. “We ended up obscuring it ourselves the way we lost in ’88 and ’90.”

Eckersley, who gave up the home run to Kirk Gibson that triggered the 1988 World Series collapse against the Dodgers, has perhaps a unique prospect on the A’s run of that era.

“It’s easy to look back now and say we should have won three in a row,” he said. “Thank God we won one.”

Stewart, who grew up just blocks from the Coliseum and used to sneak into games as a youngster, still takes pride in the A’s sweeping the Giants in what is still the only Bay Bridge World Series.

“It gives us bragging rights for a very, very long time, until it happens again,” Stewart said. “Who knows when that will be. But if never happens again, guess who won?”